


Behind a Brick Wall

by cmon_eileen



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bro - Freeform, Fix-It, Kinda, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, r + e, where eddie lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 01:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20648753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmon_eileen/pseuds/cmon_eileen
Summary: There was something behind that wall, which colored over itself with more detail in his mind as he waited behind it. There was something behind the great wall of hard brick that was too tall to climb and too long to walk around and too hard to punch and kick at. But he’d kick at it still, with the mounting frustration and confusion of not being able to conquer it mingling with the lingering dread of not wanting to discover what was behind it and a feeling that he wasn’t ready to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okayyyyyy i saw the new movie in the theater last night and liked it more than i thought i would based on the red letter media review of it but whatever i havent been fully immersed in a piece of fiction for a real long time and my beloved mr king might be doin it to me

Richie’s eyes had been dead-set on the lamp, burning away in the middle of the dusty floor, for quite some time. It was surrounded by dry leaves and twigs, which, on the ground in their current state were just that, but were the lamp to tilt and its little flame be freed, would turn straight into kindling. All it would take for that to happen would be for one of his friends to flip over, or twitch a little too hard in their sleep, and the lamp would fall and the flame would grow into full-fledged fire and claim all seven of them. Why, oh why, he wondered, couldn’t they have just left open the hatch of the clubhouse and let the moonlight serve the exact same purpose as this unnecessary risk? And then it occurred to him, in blaring, _gotcha_ clarity, that he was thinking exactly like Eddie. Who, coincidentally, had his head currently resting heavy on Richie’s ribs, with an arm snaking up along Richie’s and a leg only half-inside of the hammock in a position that looked less than comfortable.

In fact, Richie could practically hear Eddie’s voice in his head, acquiring the tone it did when no one was listening to him. “It’s so hot and dry in here, it’ll catch in a second…” Richie traced the imaginary line of fire across the little space, crossing and burning up the sleeping forms of a couple of his friends, and catching hungrily onto a wooden beam and clamping onto it like a dog on a bone. He pictured the fire rising up the spire of wood until it reached Eddie’s approximate height, and then suddenly in his memory it was light inside the clubhouse, not from the lamp or fire but from the sunshine pouring in from above and there was no more fire at all, just Eddie Kaspbrak giving the wooden beam the slightest shove and watching something fall from the ceiling in immediate response. And then he heard the far-off lecture on the dubious safety of the place begin and he shoved the memory underwater until he couldn’t hear Eddie’s voice anymore. But there was still the sound of his breaths, which were halfway-there to becoming snores, just much softer, less annoying, and more whispered. Each one was punctuated by a little, quick-fading spot of warmth on Richie’s lower chest. If I were made of glass, he thought, I’d be fogging up. 

For some reason, the notion struck him a little harder than it perhaps should have. A hyper-awareness of his closeness with his friend settled onto him - not heavy like a blanket, but lightly like setting the hose to spray a light mist over you on a hot summer day. Like in the sun it would shimmer a little. 

His fingers curled into the fabric of Eddie’s shirt, catching and balling up the fabric. He knew it was felt when Eddie’s breath caught and came out a little snort before returning to its regular pace. Richie had to wonder what that feeling had been translated to by his subconscious, and was what now being played out behind his twitching eyelids. He hoped it had nothing to do with what the seven of them had been through, or, more recently, any of the horror movies Richie had insisted Eddie come with him to see. Not even so much for Eddie’s sake, Richie reflected on with a twinge of guilt for his selfishness, but mostly because part of him hoped that his arms around Eddie’s torso was enough to ward off his nightmares. Because, Richie let himself recognize before hitting a wall, he hoped Eddie cared for him as much as he did for Eddie.

But that was it, and he’d let his introspective thoughts go as far as they could. There was something behind that wall, which colored over itself with more detail in his mind as he waited behind it. There was something behind the great wall of hard brick that was too tall to climb and too long to walk around and too hard to punch and kick at. But he’d kick at it still, with the mounting frustration and confusion of not being able to conquer it mingling with the lingering dread of not wanting to discover what was behind it and a feeling that he wasn’t ready to. He was really just a boy, a little boy, who wasn’t strong enough yet. 

The hot tears accumulating at the corners of his eyes didn’t help him feel any better - there was frustration swirling in them, frustration which only mounted with the crushing feeling of being reduced to this blubbering emasculating state that had just crept up on him. His right arm jolted with the intention of wiping roughly at his tears, but he froze halfway through, because that was a motion, too, that would make him feel like a helpless child fighting against something that was too big for him. So he stayed with his arm frozen in midair like that, and then spasmed, punching outward, and was overwhelmed with the urge to yell, something primal. Finally his hand came to rest over his heart which was pounding a little harder than usual, probably echoing loudly through his entire rib cage. Maybe that was what woke Eddie, and on the other hand, maybe it was the abrupt motions that had the hammock swaying lightly, but in the end, the effect was the same, and Eddie was awake. 

“Jesus, what the hell man,” he muttered, lifting his heavy, hazy head and blinking up at Richie, who quickly diverted his wet eyes up at the ceiling. Eddie hadn’t made much of an effort to whisper, which he couldn’t be fully blamed for, as he was still just now barely coming to and wasn’t yet fully aware of his surroundings, but Richie didn’t want anyone else to wake up, as that would entail explaining himself to more than one person. 

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

Eddie seemed to consider it for a moment, shifting as best he could to get comfortable again, but he paused before laying his head back down. “What’s wrong?” he asked in a slightly more hushed tone. 

“Nothing’s wrong, fuckhat, go back to sleep.”

Without the energy to push any further, Eddie rested his head back down onto its original spot on Richie’s chest. “Alright, Rich,” he abided, and seconds later felt Richie’s left hand come to settle briefly in his hair, although it seemed that before the desire could form for it to stay it moved away again. 

“You’re just my best friend, Eds,” Richie admitted, finding the honesty coming to him a bit better without the added pressure of eye contact. It wasn’t the full issue that was weighing on his mind, but Richie wasn’t sure even he knew what the issue was in its entirely. Therefore it couldn’t really be a lie, it was just as much truth as he could divulge in the moment to the best of his ability. That was what was letting his conscience, as tired as the rest of him, lay to rest for the time being, although he knew there were things he was omitting. He just couldn’t access all of them… not yet. Even though he not only heard them, but he felt them, churning and boiling away somewhere… just beyond that wall. 

“You’re my best friend too, Rich,” Eddie said like any other well-known fact, and Richie envied the ease with which he could say it. “I don’t see why that’s something to cry about, though.”

“I’m not _fucking_ crying,” Richie exclaimed as best he could without outright yelling, his voice breaking in and out of a whisper. He had plenty of time to ponder how in the hell Eddie could tell he’d been in tears moments before, because Eddie was silent after that, apparently content to settle in once more to the moderate comfortability of another human form and a tight hammock. Richie considered strongly getting out of the hammock and leaving Eddie to sleep on his own, but on second thought, no, he’d worked hard to secure his spot on the hammock for the night and he wasn’t about to give it up. He’d only allowed Eddie to share because he was small enough and he was also - Richie had to admit - his best friend. It had only been seconds, but already Richie could feel less and less of his frustration, and was beginning to wonder how he ever could have felt any at all.


	2. 27 Years Later

Derry, at its core, was a summer town. Meaning it flourished in the summer months, in carnivals that ran late into the night and in children playing in the streets, in the park, wading in cool water when the temperatures hit triple digits. After 27 years, Richie thought, the only thing that had changed all that much were the movies they played down at the theater, and even then, they’d have a special night for Derry’s kids of yesterday, playing one of the antiquated horror movies from Richie’s youth--ones that as a young boy had kept him up at night but now were worthy of little but laughs and a special spot on the marble pedestal of nostalgia. It was a town fully stuck in time, where at first glance it would be difficult to name the exact year, or decade, or millennia…

He’d thought his immediate urge once it was all over would be to get out of town as soon as possible, but now that the ever-present feeling of oppressive eeriness had left the air and he’d come to terms with the memories that came back to him, that should have been with him all along, he sat back and wondered what the rush was. 

There were still places he’d like to revisit, especially now, free of the underlying dread of some twisted reality, disfigured and mangled by his own fears, rearing up to pull him under in a forsaken moment of solitude. Derry wasn’t the site of atrocities that ought to be forgotten anymore, not for the time being, anyway. It was his childhood home which he’d forgotten about for far too long. 

And it seemed that Eddie had reached the same conclusion. He’d extended his hotel stay because sure, why not, and _Sleepwalkers_ was playing at the local theater on Tuesday and he remembered having a good laugh at that when he was a teenager. Eddie was dipping his hands into the stream, and he’d act surprised when the scales of a beloved memory brushed against his skin, but he’d been holding a handful of bait in his palm the whole time and he would be grabbing for the memory and trying to catch it by the fins under the surface of the water. 

To his luck, Richie remembered _Sleepwalkers_ pretty well, too, how could he not, it had been his favorite movie of the summer and he’d had it as his muse to draw upon for jokes for weeks afterwards, no shortage of them having to do with Eddie’s mom. “Yeah, yeah, oh man, I’ll see you at the theater on Tuesday, then,” he’d agreed, and it was a date. 

Truly, nothing had changed. Five-dollar Tuesdays had remained a huge success at the Derry theater, even after nearly three decades, and Richie and Eddie managed to get in at close to half the regular price. Richie bought a large popcorn, which back in the day would have probably ended up everywhere but in Richie’s mouth, and ordered a bag of peanut M&Ms for Eddie before he could even remember that old tradition. But popping one into his mouth, he did remember, how he’d always avoided peanuts for fear of having the all-too common allergy until the first time Richie had offered him a peanut M&M in the theater when they were kids and it had gone down fine. He never ate peanuts outside the theater even after that, funnily enough. But in the seat facing the big screen, battling Richie for control over the armrest, he felt strangely infallible. Like he was too infinite to succumb to peanuts or anything else, for that matter. Now it felt like being fifteen again, twenty-five years away from the next big disaster and filled with endorphins and weird hormones and feelings he couldn’t put a name to yet, which had since grown old and tired and gray. But they were new again, sitting in the renovated seats of the theater which were minimally more comfortable than they had been all those years ago. An old feeling that he hadn’t encountered in a long time challenged Richie then; the feeling of being desperately afraid to leave Derry and of his childhood, and all the wonderful things foraged in it, to be outgrown and shed. 

He gripped the armrests. And later, he’d be gripping the paper cone in his hand as the feeling filled him again upon seeing a group of approximated thirteen-year-olds exchange truths and dares under the shade of the Paul Bunyon statue, which was much less threatening than it had been when he was younger, with its weathered details and peeling paint. 

A piece of orange-tinted ice tumbled over onto his hand and he immediately relieved the pressure on his snow cone. Eddie had gotten lime and raspberry and was finishing his quicker than Richie, whose orange-strawberry ball of shredded ice was now mostly reddish slush and liquid. 

“We can’t have ticked off all the stops that quick,” Eddie was saying. “Think, Rich. Where else did we used to go?” 

Richie paused to consider. It was like being asked what his favorite movie was - it should be easy for at least a few titles to come to mind the second the word “movies” was uttered, out of the possibly hundreds of films he’d seen in his lifetime, but put on the spot and asked to remember not a one came to mind. “Ah, shit, Ed, I don’t know.” The river, the Barrens, the river, the bridge. An old bridge, the location of with mischievously eluded his memory, but the significance of which was still clear, no matter how buried. “The bridge,” he murmured, “oh, yeah. The bridge.”

“What, the - the tree trunk?”

“Not that one,” Richie shook his head, but that was a spot of fondness, too - the more rugged areas of the woods that tributaries ran through and begged to be crossed, and pushing with the combined full strength of all seven of them until weak, unearthed roots gave way and their precarious bridge collapsed with a cry of “timber!” and offered a passage across the creek. To Eddie’s relief, it was a much more stable bridge Richie was picturing.

“The kissing bridge?” Eddie guessed.

“Yeah, that one.”

“Oh. I didn’t go there much. I never kissed anyone on that bridge,” Eddie said. He hadn’t kissed anyone until he’d met his wife, and he got the awful feeling he wouldn’t be kissing anyone for a while more. The air in Derry had changed, and Eddie suspected he’d never really breathe the same again. Things had changed, when he’d dropped his inhaler into the burning pile of memories, he might as well have been dropping in his wedding band, too. In any case, the little piece of his wife’s soul he’d vowed to keep in front of the pews had fallen into the flames and withered away. 

“Me neither. I definitely thought about it, though,” Richie said and began heading towards the bridge, the direction of which came to him on instinct, like a homing pigeon drawn by forces beyond its own comprehension, but that consumed its entire comprehension. 

Eddie, in a momentary lapse of judgement let his curiosity get the better of him, his eyebrows shooting up. “Oh? Who - oh god,” he sighed, because Richie was already grinning like a maniac.

“God, the impossible number of times I imagined snogging Mrs. Kaspbrak on that bridge,” he proudly delivered the punchline, and Eddie wondered how he’d ever succeeded in stand-up comedy career when he’d been relying on the same juvenile joke for years. 

-

The stream that ran beneath the bridge was quieter than it had been twenty seven years ago. But Derry hadn’t received rainfall in a number of weeks, which accounted for the tranquility of the water. Richie was glad for the hushed trickle in place of roaring rapids, as there was a familiar dread settling in him. Rather, it was the shadow of a familiar dread, since of course that evil had been vanquished. But not without leaving an imprint on him, searing an image into his mind that it would be hard to rid himself of. There had been a moment when he had been trapped and paralyzed, helpless to IT’s whims. A deer in the deadlights. He’d seen something that no mortal being was really meant to see within the swirling lights, which with every turn and dive seemed to pull and twist another piece of his brain. His head still pounded dully when he thought back to it. Had he been caught in their otherworldly glare for any longer, he was almost certain he’d have gone insane and been retired to the same institute for poor old wack-jobs Bowers had ended up in. He’d be the man who’d seen infinity, and would sit in his chair staring blankly at the wall for the rest of his life trying to comprehend what he saw. 

His fears aside, his quick vision into the deadlights had been nothing short of a miracle of God. His vision came and went in a split second, but he saw the next hour or hours of his life play out, perhaps in the same manner one’s life passes before one’s eyes in its entirety in the final few seconds. In any case, what he’d seen was the beast rear back as it was impaled through the throat, all while somehow having the detached feeling that this wasn’t really happening, at least not in the dimension his physical form was suspended in. But in whatever world his mind had been transported to, he watched Eddie crouch over a limp form (_that’s me,_ Richie thought, _that’s me in a few seconds_), over and over again and all simultaneously, all the versions of Eddie, separated from one another by just a few fractions of a second of delay, so he was forced to pick out just one from the menagerie lest he be sick. But the nausea crept up on him nonetheless, because he knew what was happening before he watched it play out. The blunt end of a spidery limb forced itself through Eddie’s abdomen, hoisting him into the air by his wound. It all got more incomprehensible from there, images from minutes and hours behind and ahead all pressing in closer and closer to occupy the same space, as if the timeline was scrunching all together, collapsing in on itself like a burnt out star.

What he’d seen next was Eddie, just one of him, at some sort of angle so that his face was all Richie could see. “I think I killed it, I really think I killed it,” he was saying, but dread shook Richie as he knew what happened next. With all the force he could muster, he shoved Eddie off of himself, scrambling across the stone to distance himself from the exact spot he knew IT’s leg would come barreling down onto - which an instant later, it did. 

Eddie had saved his life back there, and in turn Richie had saved his. He found himself up against the brick wall again, with the conclusion that Eddie cared for him as much as he cared for Eddie, but nowhere to go from there. Last time he’d been up against the wall, wondering if his deep care for his friend ran both ways, he’d come to the bridge. 

“Shit, where is it,” Richie murmured to himself, crouching by the wooden banister by the edge of the bridge. It was rough with years upon years of initials, phallic shapes, slurs, threats, love letters and the like being carved into its surface, to the point where they overlapped and it was difficult to find one specific message from decades ago. “There it is,” Richie murmured, fishing a pocket knife from his coat to reinforce the old inscription. He reached out with the knife and his hand passed through the old brick wall, which was now just transparent enough to let him view his work. 

Eddie knelt beside him, eyeing Richie’s work curiously. It was barely legible, but Eddie watched as an “R” was roughly inscribed into the wood. 

“I put this here that first summer,” Richie explained, bringing a little plus sign back from illegibility. “And I was thinking about it again recently. I was thinking about it a lot.” the brick wall crumbled at the spots where his arm stuck through it. “We’ve all been coming to terms with shit we’ve had repressed for thirty years, so I thought it was about time you saw it.” He then carved out an “E,” wood shavings peeling off into curls around his blade and falling onto the ground or into the water below. 

Richie leaned back to admire the engraving. There was now a gaping hole of significant size in the brick wall. 

Eddie broke the silence that followed by clearing his throat. “Um. What’s the E for? Was that Elise?” he asked, racking his brain for all the “E” girlfriends Richie may have possessed. But Elise from the tenth grade was the only one that came to mind.

Richie paused, and had to laugh, realizing that Eddie hadn’t quite been with him. Poor Eddie, he thought with amusement, all lost just a couple paces behind. “That’s you, Eddie. The E stands for you.”

“Oh.” was all Eddie said. 

“Well there it is then,” Richie said after a pause, standing, and Eddie stood after him. “Surprised? Didn’t expect Rich to end up a queer? Me neither,” Richie admitted. 

“It’s not that.”

“But like I said, we’re all coming to terms with things now. I’ve never even said that out loud before - that I’m gay.”

“Rich.”

“It’s not a big deal. But if you’re going to go back to New York and I’m gonna go back to California, I figured I’d let you in on the dirty little secret, huh?”

“Rich.”

“It’s just that you nearly died in there. I saw the whole thing play out, how it would have happened if you had. And I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I never got to tell you, no matter how insignificant they--”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Eddie said more firmly, and Richie’s mouth snapped shut. But now that the ball was in Eddie’s court, the spotlight and microphone his, he didn’t know what he wanted to say. All he could do was look at Richie’s face, more genuine and vulnerable than he’d seen it in years, and reminisce. 

They were young, around fourteen, Eddie guessed. A chase had broken out, although who exactly was chasing who was lost to the crunching of dead leaves underfoot. The whole pack of seven darted through the streets, speeding like a bullet into the woods, where the whole canopy and carpet of reds and oranges gave the impression of fire and of warmth. Eddie fell to the back of the pack as his endurance wore out, and Richie fell to the back as well, just to keep pace with him. Soon they had slowed to a walk and the others were long gone, each still taking a shot at being the winner of the race. Eddie was wheezing loudly and Richie managed to urge him to sit down.

“I’ll be fine,” Eddie insisted. “Just give me a second.”

“You sound like you’re about to fucking die, Eds,” Richie pointed out with worry that he covered up well. “You’re gonna have a fucking asthma attack or something, Jesus Christ.”

“I’m not,” Eddie protested, but it was weak and strangled enough that it worked to the exact opposite of the desired effect. 

Richie, with one hand on Eddie’s shoulder, glanced up through the trees, making a quick estimate of the distance. “Just stay put, if I sprint I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” he promised with a squeeze of Eddie’s shoulder that left no room for argument before darting off. 

He came back in ten.

Crouching down beside his friend, he forced the inhaler into his hands, watching Eddie draw a long puff from it and sigh with less of a wheeze and more of a rattle in his throat. 

“You’ve got to be careful, Eds, you’ve got lungs the size of fuckin’ grapes, you could seriously hurt yourself.”

“Shut your stupid mouth,” Eddie could swear he’d remembered quipping, but in Richie’s recollection he had just been silent and leaned his head against Richie’s shoulder, letting the medicine settle in his lungs. 

It was later that day that, faced up against that wall again, Richie had decided to do something about it and marched to the bridge with a pocket knife to carve his two-letter manifesto into the wood. 

“Just come here,” Eddie said at last, holding out his arms. Richie walked into them without hesitation, wrapping his own arms around Eddie and giving a tight squeeze. Eddie’s arms settled around Richie’s shoulders and he tilted his head into his hair, sighing quietly into it. Richie’s glasses bumped Eddie’s shoulder. With a tremble, a landslide of bricks crumbled and fell at their feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please comment it's my life blood tell me what i did right what i did wrong have i done mr king proud....


End file.
